Friday, August 21, 2020 07:00 PM (ET)

Flyers hold off Canadiens, seal series in 6

Field Level Media
Aug 21, 2020

Kevin Hayes scored a goal and added an assist to lift the Philadelphia Flyers past the Montreal Canadiens 3-2 on Friday in Toronto, sealing their Eastern Conference quarterfinal series in six games.

Ivan Provorov and Michael Raffl added one goal apiece as the Flyers won a playoff series for the first time since 2012. The top-seeded Flyers will battle the sixth-seeded New York Islanders in the Eastern Conference semifinals, which, like the quarterfinals, will be best-of-seven.

Flyers goaltender Carter Hart, who recorded two shutouts in this series, made 31 saves Friday.

Nick Suzuki scored both goals for the eighth-seeded Canadiens.

Joel Arnia and Jonathan Drouin contributed two assists each for Montreal.

Canadiens goaltender Carey Price stopped 14 of 17 shots.

The Flyers jumped out to a 1-0 lead just 28 seconds into the first period when Provorov ripped a wrist shot through traffic. The puck appeared to deflect off Montreal's Shea Weber and into the net.

Following a power play, the Flyers stayed aggressive and Hayes scored his first goal of the series when he sent the puck through Price's pads for a 2-0 lead at 5:23 of the first.

Suzuki cut the deficit to 2-1 when he corralled a rebound in front and tapped the puck through Hart to score on the power play at 10:03 of the opening period.

The Flyers regained their two-goal advantage when Jakub Voracek sent a crisp pass to Travis Sanheim, who delivered a shot off Raffl at 4:26 of the second.

But Montreal struck quickly at 6:05 as Suzuki registered his second goal to close the gap to 3-2.

The Canadiens nearly tied the game when Tomas Tatar fired a shot from point-blank range off Hart and into the seats at 13:11 in the third.

Montreal pulled Price for an extra skater with 1:50 left but couldn't capitalize despite several good scoring opportunities in the final 30 seconds.

Philadelphia's Matt Niskanen was suspended for the Friday game after cross-checking Brendan Gallagher in Game 5. Gallagher sustained a broken jaw and underwent surgery.

--Field Level Media

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